A doctor has described his frantic efforts to save the life of one of the young backpackers killed by poisoned alcohol in Laos.
Dr Yaher, of the district hospital in the tourist town of Vang Vieng, was the first to treat the 19-year-old Australian Holly Bowles, one of six foreign tourists who died after drinking spirits contaminated with the deadly chemical methanol.
Bowles died in a hospital in Thailand on Friday, nine days after being taken to Yaher’s emergency room, 500 yards from the Nana Backpacker Hostel. She and her friend Bianca Jones collapsed there after drinking free shots of spirits two nights earlier.
Dr Yaher, who treated Bowles, said it was the first time in 30 years he had seen methanol poisoning
VALERIA MONGELLI/THE SUNDAY TIMES
The doctor said that the teenager went from a state of reeling confusion to a coma in just half an hour